Humility, Cleanliness and Pure Thinking
At first, sleeping beneath the trees was discomforting. No stars and no moonlight penetrated the forest’s canopy and it had a blackness that was complete and absolute. The forest in daylight was a place of intrigue – the green light filtering through the leaves had a warmth and a beauty – but by night it took on a different shape. It thickened around us. Bats would drop from the boughs, their tattered wings like ashes. The darkness took on a depth and a weight, and it started to press down on us and creep over us. We would hear unfamiliar noises and imagined men coming to get us. We would see their eyes in the distance, cold and penetrating. But they would turn out to be the eyes of owls or the eyes of badgers. We would hear the call of the nightjar and we couldn’t be certain if it was in our heads or out there somewhere. It sounded like someone tiptoeing towards us. It sounded like someone tapping at a window. It sounded like someone scratching on a skull. We would go to sleep and dream. We would wake up in the black, and it felt like we were at the bottom of the ocean. We would hear gnats whine. Sometimes a fox sounds like a child screaming. And you don’t know where you are. Who you are. And you don’t know if you are awake or asleep. The hand that grabs you by the throat. The rancid breath on your neck. And you have to pinch your skin to know what’s real. We would wake in the morning and see a silver trail over our bodies where snails and slugs had crawled. Spiders would weave threads through our hair. Ants would crawl up our legs. Earwigs would seek refuge in warm orifices. Some nights I would wake to the sound of Emily crying out in her sleep and I’d hold her and rock her until she fell back to sleep again.
After a few days and nights we began to get used to the darkness. If not entirely ever settled there. I’d slept under the stars before but there was just something about this wood. It was holding something back. Some terrible secret. Something buried. Something hidden. I was thinking about my mother, and the terrible secret the world had kept from me. Perhaps all dark places had their secrets. Emily continued to have nightmares and I continued to provide what insufficient solace I could.
On the next Sunday morning, just before dawn, when the light was an amber glow through the gaps in the trees, and the magpies made their mechanical rattle, we set off in a north-easterly direction. The trees thinned out and the bracken fell away and our view opened onto a moor. The moor dropped down onto farmland. We trekked across fields until we saw the spire of a chapel in the distance.
We came to a dirt track, which led to a stone bridge over a beck and a coaching road that took us past a tanning yard into the heart of the village. There was a sign announcing that we were in Kirby. It wasn’t a very expansive place. A butcher’s, a grocer’s, a blacksmith’s, plenty of cottages. Horses and sheep grazed on the green. There was a watering trough and a pillory. The pillory was a hinged wooden frame erected on a post. The post was on a stone platform and there was an old man with his head and hands poking out of the device. But it was too early for people so there was no crowd gathered to taunt him. His hair and face were covered in dried remnants of whatever rotten food he’d been pelted with the day before. We walked close by but he didn’t look up. I thought for a moment he might be dead but as we got nearer to him I could hear his low moaning. He smelled of the toilet.
We made our way to the chapel. It was a small stone building with large stained-glass windows and a rounded tower. It was still too soon for Sunday service so we sat and waited in the burial ground among the resting dead. Rooks were waking up, mice were bedding down, rabbits scratched for roots. At last the villagers, dressed in their Sunday best, started to congregate outside the gates. There were children playing and much chatter among the adults. A man in a smock and cloth cap, who I assumed was the sexton, opened first the gate, then the door of the chapel, and the flock entered.
The air was cool and musty inside, and people spoke in hushed tones. The sun poured through a stained-glass window, projecting red, yellow, blue and green light into the room. In one pane of the window was a picture of Adam and Eve being tempted with an apple, next to this a picture of Moses holding a stone tablet and a staff. Further on was Jesus on the cross with blood pouring from his wounds. On the other side of the room was another brightly coloured pane, this time of a woman in a blue shroud, holding up the naked baby Jesus for all to see. She had a blue and yellow halo around her head. I thought about my own mother and her plight. I wondered if she’d ever held me up to the world so hopefully. In my mind’s eye I saw men wrench the baby from her arms. I saw my mother fight with them. I saw them beat her into the ground. Tearing at her clothes. Holding her down.
We found an empty pew at the back. Motes of dust seemed to float up to the source of light. Eventually a portly man in a powdered wig, matching the description of Jonas Bold that Jack Lancaster had provided, mounted the pulpit. He was an elderly man, probably in his seventies. His gait was crooked and his movements slow and stiff. He was dressed in simple attire. The audience went quiet. Jonas turned the pages of a large bible that was open on a wooden lectern and addressed the crowd. He began his sermon.
‘Good morning to you all,’ he said.
The crowd answered him.
‘Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Receive us, Lord. Pacify us, oh God! So that we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man. I speak all of this to you not to condemn you but to uplift you. To witness your clean hearts to our Lord. Great therefore is my boldness of speech towards you, as our gracious Father glories in your sinless state. I am filled with comfort. I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation.’
I’d heard the bombast of base fustian many times before from both Joseph and the preacher in Keighley. I’d heard that the preacher in Keighley frequented the brothel there. It seemed to me that the more a man pleaded his innocence and virtue, the bigger a cunt he was. Emily gave me a look and rolled her eyes.
‘I want to talk to you today about godliness and wickedness. As you know, I am a wealthy man. I have spent many years accumulating my wealth. I own an iron foundry, a sugar refinery, two distilleries. I own several large ocean vessels as well as a plantation abroad. But these riches do not bring me closer to God. For in truth you cannot serve both the Lord and Mammon also. I mean to do some good with my money. To this end, as many of you good people know already, I have set up a dispensary in Liverpool town to give free medical treatment and medicine to the poor. It has been there nearly two years now and many a sick man and woman has passed through its gates, healed by the physicians within. The physicians carry out God’s work, for did not Jesus himself make the blind man see? And did not Jesus himself cure the leper and the lame?’
There were cheers from the congregation. Mr Bold held up his hands. The congregation became quiet again.
‘This is not what I want to talk to you about today. What I want to talk to you about today are the Christian virtues that I hold closest to my heart: humility, cleanliness and pure thinking. Know that you are here to serve God. Know that filthiness of the flesh and spirit offendeth the Lord. Know that to be pure of thought is to be closest to God. For what is wealth and power without godliness? By all means go out and seek your fortune, become fabulously wealthy as I have become, but never forget, if you do not have God in your heart, your wealth hath no value in the eyes of the Lord.’
On and on he preached until his words blurred in my ears and his vision faded from my mind. This was my mother’s killer. And worse. This dumpy frail old man with a daft wig on. Where was God’s great vengeance and furious anger? Here we were in His house, with this poisonous dwarf, the destroyer of my mother, standing under His roof. My God had abandoned me.
I looked up at the crucified Christ, and imagined Jonas Bold nailed to that cross instead, wearing a crown of thorns instead of a periwig. With blood dripping down his fat face and pouring from the wounds in his hands and feet.
The congregation stood and sang a hymn. We waited for Mr Bold outside the chapel as the congregation thinned out. Some stayed and chatted, others hurried on their way. We saw Mr Bold leave the chapel by the back door and make his way to the burial ground. He walked with a cane in one hand. His gait was unsteady. We followed some distance behind, making sure we weren’t spotted. He approached a grave. He stood over it and made the sign of the cross on his breast. He spoke to the grave but we were too far away to hear the words. After he had gone we went to the grave where he had stood. It said: ‘Here lyeth Annabel Bold.’ From the date on the tombstone, I was able to work out that she was only forty when she died and had only gone recently to the grave. Just three months under the earth. The grave was not ostentatious, as others were around it, but rather plain. This surprised me from one so wealthy, but it was clear that Jonas had loved her dearly and that he was still in the midst of his grief. We stood over the grave in silence.
‘What are you thinking?’ Emily said.
‘The same thing as you,’ I said.
When we got back to the forest we checked the snares and gathered some greens. We built up the fire for the pot. Emily was unusually quiet.
‘I’ve been doing a bit of thinking,’ she said after a time. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’
‘About what?’ I said.
‘We only get one chance with Bold. If we meet him at the grave next Sunday and he turns us down, where do we go from there? Have you thought about that? We know from experience that most people don’t go for it. Some fear us, others are hostile. What’s to say Jonas won’t reject us in some way also? Then we’re screwed.’
‘But he’s a religious man. He’s lost his love. He is still fresh in grief. He’s the perfect target,’ I said.
‘He is also pious. He will see the trick as devilry. We can’t risk it. We know something about the man. We know he has wealth. We know he has been a powerful figure. We know his wife has recently died. He talked about humility and cleanliness and pure thinking. His past rests heavily on his head. He carries guilt on his back.’
‘So what then?’ I said.
‘My dad used to do something he called catting. You ever come across it?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s where you copy your victim. You dress like them, you talk like them, you act like them, you even think like them. You be them. My dad was really good at it. He was an expert mimic. People like people who are like them.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘We make you in Jonas’s image. We dress you like him, we make you sound like him. We make you be like him in every way we can. You strike up a friendship with him. We take it slowly, over time.’
‘What for? I just want to make him pay for what he did to my mother.’
‘Then you’re missing the point and you’re missing a trick. You’ve talked before about wanting to get an education. Well, you can’t do that without a lot of money. This Jonas can give you what you want. If you play it straight.’
She was right again. His head on a pike was not enough. I could have his wealth as well. His wealth was mine in any case. For hadn’t he made his money by breaking the will of my mother and others like her?
‘But I can’t talk like him. There’s no way I can do that.’
‘Yes, you can. I can teach you. How do you think I learned to do different voices? From my dad. Anyone can learn. It’s just practice.’
I agreed to give it a go and that evening, after we had suppered, Emily gave me my first lesson.
‘We are going to say some tongue twisters to get you started,’ she said. ‘Say with me, “Round the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran”.’
‘What for?’
‘Just say it.’
I did as I was told. Emily made me repeat the phrase, lengthening the first ‘a’ in rascal.
‘Your “a” is a flat “a”. But posh people lengthen it to “aaaa”.’
The next phrase was even stranger. Emily kept stopping me and getting me to repeat certain words.
‘Slow it down. We’ve got to get rid of these flat sounds. They’re a proper giveaway.’
It was hard going at first and my mouth resisted these foreign imposters, but with practice it became easier. Like new shoe leather around feet, the shape of my mouth began to form around these unaccustomed sounds. All week we practised until Emily said it would do.
‘We’ll have to do something about your appearance. We can get away with your clothes as they are simple and unadorned like the clothes of Mr Bold, but you need to be clean-shaven, and your hair needs to be neater.’
‘But we haven’t got a razor. How do I shave without a razor?’
‘All right, scrap that. I can use the knife to cut your hair and beard. As long as it’s neat, that’s the main thing.’
I sat down and let Emily cut my locks and trim my beard. The knife was sharp but still it took her a long time – standing back and circling around me, making a range of dissatisfied tuts – before she was happy with the result. Clumps of black locks fell all around me.
‘I think that will do,’ she said, standing back from her work. ‘Go and have a look in the beck and let me know what you think.’
I walked over to where the water was deep and still and examined my reflection. My hair was short and neat, and my beard had been trimmed so that it followed my jawline. The effect was to civilise me to some end.
‘What do you think?’ Emily said when I returned.
I nodded. ‘It will do.’
‘Another thing to remember,’ she said. ‘When you talk to him, let him take the lead. He’s got to think that this is his idea. He’s got to think he’s the one making the moves. You take your cue from him.’
‘But I’m still not sure what we’re doing?’
‘We’re getting under his skin.’
‘So we can get his wealth?’
‘Correct.’
‘But how?’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’
The following Sunday we returned to the village. We both attended the service but agreed to split up afterwards. I waited close to the grave of Annabel Bold, concealed by a holly bush, and bided my time. I watched Jonas approach his wife’s grave. He stood there in silence for a while. He muttered some words I couldn’t hear. Then I watched him shuffle off and sit on a bench further on. It was then I decided to do as we’d agreed. I walked across to where he was sitting.
‘Good day to you, sir.’
He looked up and wished me good day, not really taking that much notice.
‘Forgive me for intruding but I’ve just attended your service and I wanted to say how moved I was by your words.’
‘God’s words, not mine.’
‘I was travelling through and was in need of communion with the holy scripture.’
‘A need we all have hour by hour in our daily lives,’ he said.
‘May I sit beside you while I rest a moment?’
He moved the cloth of his coat so that I could join him on the bench. I copied his posture, crossing my legs and clutching the other arm of the bench, mirroring his position.
‘I’ve travelled many a mile.’
‘To attend my sermon?’
‘I am a lay preacher, sir, only recently accredited.’
‘You have the same right to preach as the next man.’
‘I am an itinerant preacher, you see. I travel from town to town to spread the word of the Lord.’
‘Bless you, for that is a noble pursuit.’
‘In truth, I have little experience so far. I came here today to see you teach the word of God. A holy man of some standing recommended you to me. Your sermon inspired me.’
‘It is God’s words that inspired you. I am merely his receptacle.’
‘I have had much need of God.’
‘Aye.’
‘I am recently bereaved. And my grief feels like a fortress wall around me.’
‘And I too. My dear Annie. I come here often and ask her for forgiveness. She’s buried just there,’ he said, pointing to her grave. ‘God bless her soul.’
‘My sister and I have recently lost both our parents. My father was a baker. There was a fire. He hadn’t put out the fire in the oven. My parents’ bedroom was directly beneath the bakery. My sister and I had a room further away. The Lord works in mysterious ways.’
‘So he does. So he does. I’m very sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you, sir. It’s been hard, especially for my sister, who is much younger than I. And much in need of divine comfort. Many a morning I have woken, to find her drenched in her own tears.’
‘The poor thing. It must be hard for one so young. Well, I must get back home. I have the Lord’s work to do. Will I see you again?’
‘I am in the area for a time. I have some business hereabouts to attend to. So I expect you will.’
I recalled the shady corner of a churchyard, a flower-strewn shrine and the name inscribed thereon.
‘My name is Adam Watkin.’
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Jonas Bold.’
We shook hands.
‘Come next Sunday, Adam. I’d like to see you again.’
‘I’d like that.’
Jonas got to his feet and took hold of his silver-tipped cane. I could see now that he was really quite infirm. He had to get up from the seat in various stages. First shuffling to the edge of the bench, then using the arm of the bench to lever himself up.
‘Here, let me help you.’
I stood up and offered him my hand.
He took hold and I brought him to his feet. I watched him hobble back down the path.
Emily and I purchased a few provisions in the village, mostly edible ones, but I also bought a bar of soap. Perhaps Bold’s sermon had rubbed off on me. He had spoken again about cleanliness. In any case, neither of us had bathed for a week now and the stench was starting to offend my nostrils. More importantly, I didn’t want to offend the nostrils of Jonas Bold. We loaded up the bag and made our way across country, back to the forest. As we walked back I told Emily about my conversation with Jonas Bold.
‘I think that went as well as to be expected,’ she said. ‘You didn’t rush it. Good. It’s important for us to gain his trust. We need to let him take the lead. We need him to be curious about us. It’s good that you gave yourself the name Adam. Clever thinking. It will plant a seed. It’s the subtle things. Somewhere in his head now he will think of you as God’s first son.’
In fact, I’d thought of no such thing. The name had just caught my eye, that was all. I wondered again about my mother. About the name she had given me when I had come out of her belly. The name she had given me when she had washed the grease from my body. The name she had given me when she had pressed my lips to her teat. Mr Earnshaw had called me Heathcliff after his lost son. And I now realised why, Cathy. I was his lost son. I was your half-brother.
‘We’ll go back next Sunday,’ Emily said.
‘I’ll introduce you to him. It will help our cause.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Definitely. That we are both orphans. With you being so young.’
‘In which case I’ll need to have a new name too. When did his wife die?’
‘June, according to her epitaph.’
‘Very well. June Watkin it is.’
We found a decent-sized plunge pool, where the river gathered, and I stripped off. The pool was in the shadows of a rocky crevice; a waterfall frothed over the precipice and tumbled into the black water. Flies buzzed and martins skimmed the surface. I dived in first. The water’s coldness took my breath away and tightened my chest, but as I swam, the heat soon returned.
‘Jump in,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely.’
‘Fuck that,’ Emily said.
She stood and watched me splash about. Then she took off her boots and dipped a toe in.
‘It’s freezing.’
‘Don’t be soft.’
She took off her dress, took a deep breath, then lowered herself in. She faffed about for a bit, clinging to an overhanging branch and kicking water into foam.
‘Can’t you swim?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll teach you.’
I tried to teach her crawl but she couldn’t get the rhythm right, so then I tried to teach her breast stroke but she soon tired of the lesson and we settled on a sort of doggy paddle. I remembered the time you taught me to swim, down at Devil’s Beck. You’d laughed at my attempts at first, but I soon overtook you, diving the depths, pulling you under. Letting my hands slide over your naked skin. Feeling the coarse hair between your legs. The animal part of you.
We bathed and I scrubbed our clothes clean. I hung them from the branches of a tree to dry. I looked at Emily’s wound. It was almost healed. We checked the snares but none of them gave us a reward. And we ate just greens and what berries were left. We’d foraged most of what there was. The next day we set up some more snares but there was only wire left for another two. We talked about our new identities, Adam and June. Our parents had been poor but of good stock and breeding. Through tireless charitable labour they had raised some money for an orphanage. But not enough. Our father had gone to sleep one night and God had visited him in his dreams and told him what he was destined to do.
We checked the snares over the course of the day, but none yielded. When there were still no rabbits the day after that I turned to Emily and said, ‘There’s only one thing for it.’
‘What’s that?’ Emily said.
‘I’m going to go back to Liverpool tonight and see what I can get.’
‘It’s not worth the risk,’ Emily said. ‘We can buy some supplies from the village. It’s not much further.’
‘We need to keep hold of the money we’ve got. It will be fine. There’s no danger there now, as long as I go on my own, like I did last time.’
‘If you’re sure.’
In truth, I fancied a change of diet. I also anticipated the excitement of another trip. And so that evening I left Emily guarding the fire and I made the journey again. I found a sizeable domestic dwelling of a wealthy family and broke into their pantry. I filled my bag with cuts of meat, strings of sausages, a cabbage, carrots, potatoes and cake. I found a bottle of wine also. I was making my way back when I came across a tavern with people spilling out. I heard raised voices and when I got closer I could see that two men were questioning some of the drinkers, who were sitting at a bench, supping ale and sucking pipes. Even from this distance, in the near-dark, just a dim light from the lantern close by, I recognised the men. It was Dick Taylor and his yellow-haired companion.
Yellow-head was clutching a creased sheet of paper. It was the drawing of me and Emily, and he was pointing at it. There were men standing about, in conversation with them. I strained to hear what they were saying, but there was a door between me and the men.
I darted into a doorway as quick as a hare. Luckily the men hadn’t seen me. How had they tracked us down? Had the wanted notice spread beyond Liverpool town, perhaps as far as Manchester? I crouched there and waited, feeling the vein pulse in my neck, until the men had finished their inquisition with the revellers and were walking off in the opposite direction. When I was certain that the coast was clear, I hurriedly made my way back to camp.
I let Emily feast on our midnight picnic before I broke the bad news.
‘I saw them.’
‘Who?’
‘The farmer’s son, Dick Taylor, with his companion.’
‘This evening, outside a tavern. They were questioning some of the customers.’
She bit into one of the cakes. I passed her the wine bottle.
‘And you’re sure it was them?’
‘They had the wanted notice with them.’
‘How did they know to come to Liverpool?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe they’ve put up notices there? Maybe we’ve made the papers?’
She uncorked the bottle and took a swig before saying, ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Nothing. They won’t find us here.’
‘You said that before. You said they wouldn’t follow us to Manchester. But they followed us to Manchester. You said they wouldn’t follow us to Liverpool but now they’ve followed us to Liverpool. Now you’re saying they won’t follow us here. One thing we know about them, they’re persistent. They are never going to stop looking until they find us.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘I don’t say this lightly, and if there was any other solution to the problem I’d be happy to go along with it. But there’s only one way out of this. You need to dispatch them before they dispatch us. You need to go back there and kill them, William Lee. Like my dad used to say, it’s kill or be killed.’
She was right, of course, once again. While they were waltzing and gavotting, we could never truly be free. The only solution was to end their lives. Something I should have done that night, when I had the chance.
‘It’s too late tonight, Emily. They’ll be in bed now at their lodgings.’
‘Yes, all right, tomorrow night.’
She passed back the wine. I uncorked it and glugged it down. I would go back. I would do what had to be done. I would grab the adder by its tail and snap it like a stick.